Omis exciting journey to Bollywood or: “Who is the 4th Idiot”?

(bo, bc) During the „Bollywood and beyond“ film festival in Stuttgart, Germany, we interviewed Matt McCroskey, a film maker from Los Angeles. Matt is one of the closest friends of Omi Vaidya who made big shots by playing the role of Chatur Ramalingam in „3 Idiots“ (starring: Aamir Khan, DVD released on 2 Dec 2011 – don’t miss our raffle!) and became a Bollywood hero overnight. Matt and his best friends Kenny, Tyler and Bill („The Dream Team“ as termed by themselves) are all film makers and were excited now to work together on this project. Thus, they did not hesitate to produce „Big in Hollywood“ documenting Omis exciting journey from L.A. to Bollywood.

With some screenplays in his bag Omi went to India as a film maker himself actually. There he got in touch with an audition for „3 Idiots“ which was directed by Rajkumar Hirani and produced by Vidhu Vinod Chopra. Omi was neither capable to speak Hindi nor did he know „this Aamir Khan“. Nevertheless, being trained as an actor, he convinced the film makers with an outstanding and talented performance and proved to be „the chosen one“ for his role as Chatur Ramalingam alias Chamatkar („The Silencer“).

„Big in Bollywood“ illustrates Omi Vaidya’s life-changing journey from Hollywood to Bollywood and picks up the audience to join him to the film premiere of „Big in Bollywood“ in India and back to the US thereafter.

This film depicts the remarkable success story of an US actor of Indian origin from the view of his closest friends. „Big in Bollywood“ won several audience’s awards, such as in Los Angeles, New York and Stuttgart.

We met Matt during his journey to Germany (see our coverage „Bollywood and Beyond“) and learned interesting facts about Omi, the shootings and their funny experiences in India and about Matt’s projects and being an actor as well. The first part of this interview  can be watched on Youtube.

Matt McCroskey was interviewed by Tomal Ganguly. Camera and post-production including editing by Birgit Opitz.